8th ave wrote:The only reason I thought Sefolosha's might be skewed is because the amount of times he was isolated. Maybe everyones PPP numbers are better than his because they often don't get the assignment of guarding the best player night in and night out like Sefolosha does, but I looked up Tony Allen's number who I think is the best wing defender in the NBA, and his PPP is .78. 15 points higher than Sefolosha. Based on defensive rating and PPP, Sefolosha ain't **** on defense.

The reason he is considered an elite defender is because he's elite at defending the P&R Ball Handler. The most used play in basketball. It's a staple you need defensively.

Tony Allen. He's on another level. He's very good.

Ok. So in terms of Pick and roll ball handler, Sefolosha gives us .82 PPP. Nicolas Batum gives up .8 PPP on Pick and roll ball hander. So Nicolas Batum is an elite defender too?

8th ave wrote:So I'm looking at David Lee's defensive numbers. Is his poor defense overblown or are these stats misleading. Because based on synergy, he is very similar to David West.

Our defensive schemes prevent Lee from being bad on synergy. Notice the lack of FG attempts against him near the rim. It's almost all jump shots.

Defensively speaking, this is the best possible scheme for Lee. That's why I like Mark Jackson a lot.

What defensive scheme is that?

Sag off and tempt out opponents into jumpers. Opponents took the second most threes against us. But despite being fifth in perimeter defense, we still are 13th in defensive efficiency. Mainly because threes are worth more so a high volume of them, even low percentage are "efficient." I think Bogut and Iggy make us top five defensively. I think Lee will be hidden defensively again.

Ehhhh. This is an example of how numbers lie. Martin's always been efficient, but I fail to see why this roster would be any different from his God awful records in Sacramento. KMart, AK-47, Thabo, Ibaka... They're all extremely efficient, when they get wide open jumpers off the work of a drive-and-kick playmaker. Your team doesn't have anyone who can create something out of nothing. They'd be incredible with a Jru Holiday or Steph Curry at the helm, but you chose to take Ibaka early instead of somebody you could build around.

Maybe it's genius. I dunno. I just don't see this roster being effective in real life, despite how it looks on paper.

Yeah but you also think Rudy Gay and Monta Ellis suck, so I'm beginning to think you undervalue guys who can create their own offense off the dribble because their extra usage makes their efficiency go down. Holliday isn't a top 5 point guard, but he's top 12 for sure and he's better than anyone on that team we're talking about - except possibly Ibaka, cause Serge is just a damn elite defensive 4.